Millennium Falcon bites the dust

Fortunately Jean and the kids are fine…but that doesn’t begin to describe our week…
Jean: “On the way home from Terri’s I rear ended someone on Braddock Rd. – my car is totaled. the kids and i are fine but i’m just so beaten down by this point. this is ridiculous. Somebody stopped unexpectedly during a green light when traffic was flowing at about 50 miles an hour. The worst part was, I wasn’t even being distracted by the kids at the time. I was actually paying attention, but the car in front of me stopped so suddenly that although I immediately put on the brakes I slid into him. I don’t know what’s going to happen, if they’ll be able to fix it or what. I JUST overhauled the entire engine. sigh. Things have to get better at this point, right?!
****
well, sadly it was my fault because I ran into them. So I got charged with reckless driving and have to go to court. Even though I stomped on the brakes as soon as possible – their brakes were better than mine. The cop was sympathetic since I had two witnesses to the unexpected stop who stayed to give a statement, but he still had to charge me.
Merrill had been sleeping, cried when we hit for about 30 seconds, then fell back asleep. the firefighters who came by to make sure all the kids were ok (especially Eleanor) before we moved them ended up leaving her buckled in her car seat and moving the whole seat off to the grass on the side of the road. She was still asleep for at least another half hour with the wind blowing in her hair before she woke up still buckled in her car seat out on the side of the road totally confused. All the kids were fine. We actually didn’t hit that hard, but I ran into a Ford F-150 truck with a tow hitch, and his hitch basically just ripped right through my front end and radiator. His bumper was barely hurt, but my car looked like a wreck.
The cops were upset that my airbag didn’t deploy. they think I should contact my dealer, and they think someone might have stolen it. Frankly I’m glad it didn’t because we didn’t hit that hard and I was wearing sunglasses and if it had blown up in my face my eye would REALLY have hurt!”
This seems to be the culmination of all things in the past couple months…to date:
Jean’s rear window got shattered
Microwave/Convection Oven died
Freezer defrosted (either electrician or handyman left it unplugged)
Mortgage company refused to refinance us (too much property, too little house)
Got knocked into the street by a giant metal gate (ummm….yeah. Ask Jean. She does a good job at having you visualizing her natural ability to roll. I simply would have fallen down like a giant metal robot)
Got in a car accident
In any case, the Falcon is totaled. No joke, right? So now Jean is test-driving upper mileage wagons. We’d like to stay with a standard transmission, but apparently those are few and far between. Our current favorite is the Audi A6 with third row seating…